THE WARS OF THE JEWS

THE HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM

Book VI: Chapter 5

THE GREAT DISTRESS THE JEWS WERE IN
UPON THE CONFLAGRATION OF THE HOLY HOUSE. CONCERNING A
FALSE PROPHET, AND THE SIGNS THAT PRECEDED THIS
DESTRUCTION.

1. WHILE the holy house was on fire, every thing
was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of
those that were caught were slain; nor was there a
commiseration of any age, or any reverence of gravity,
but children, and old men, and profane persons, and
priests were all slain in the same manner; so that
this war went round all sorts of men, and brought them
to destruction, and as well those that made
supplication for their lives, as those that defended
themselves by fighting. The flame was also carried a
long way, and made an echo, together with the groans
of those that were slain; and because this hill was
high, and the works at the temple were very great, one
would have thought the whole city had been on fire.
Nor can one imagine any thing either greater or more
terrible than this noise; for there was at once a
shout of the Roman legions, who were marching all
together, and a sad clamor of the seditious, who were
now surrounded with fire and sword. The people also
that were left above were beaten back upon the enemy,
and under a great consternation, and made sad moans at
the calamity they were under; the multitude also that
was in the city joined in this outcry with those that
were upon the hill. And besides, many of those that
were worn away by the famine, and their mouths almost
closed, when they saw the fire of the holy house, they
exerted their utmost strength, and brake out into
groans and outcries again: Pera did also return the
echo, as well as the mountains round about [the city,]
and augmented the force of the entire noise. Yet was
the misery itself more terrible than this disorder;
for one would have thought that the hill itself, on
which the temple stood, was seething hot, as full of
fire on every part of it, that the blood was larger in
quantity than the fire, and those that were slain more
in number than those that slew them; for the ground
did no where appear visible, for the dead bodies that
lay on it; but the soldiers went over heaps of those
bodies, as they ran upon such as fled from them. And
now it was that the multitude of the robbers were
thrust out [of the inner court of the temple by the
Romans,] and had much ado to get into the outward
court, and from thence into the city, while the
remainder of the populace fled into the cloister of
that outer court. As for the priests, some of them
plucked up from the holy house the spikes that were
upon it, with their bases, which were made of lead,
and shot them at the Romans instead of darts. But then
as they gained nothing by so doing, and as the fire
burst out upon them, they retired to the wall that was
eight cubits broad, and there they tarried; yet did
two of these of eminence among them, who might have
saved themselves by going over to the Romans, or have
borne up with courage, and taken their fortune with
the others, throw themselves into the fire, and were
burnt together with the holy house; their names were
Meirus the son of Belgas, and Joseph the son of Daleus.

2. And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain
to spare what was round about the holy house, burnt
all those places, as also the remains of the cloisters
and the gates, two excepted; the one on the east side,
and the other on the south; both which, however, they
burnt afterward. They also burnt down the treasury
chambers, in which was an immense quantity of money,
and an immense number of garments, and other precious
goods there reposited; and, to speak all in a few
words, there it was that the entire riches of the Jews
were heaped up together, while the rich people had
there built themselves chambers [to contain such
furniture]. The soldiers also came to the rest of the
cloisters that were in the outer [court of the]
temple, whither the women and children, and a great
mixed multitude of the people, fled, in number about
six thousand. But before Caesar had determined any
thing about these people, or given the commanders any
orders relating to them, the soldiers were in such a
rage, that they set that cloister on fire; by which
means it came to pass that some of these were
destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and
some were burnt in the cloisters themselves. Nor did
any one of them escape with his life. A false prophet
was the occasion of these people's destruction, who
had made a public proclamation in the city that very
day, that God commanded them to get upon the temple,
and that there they should receive miraculous signs of
their deliverance. Now there was then a great number
of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose on
the people, who denounced this to them, that they
should wait for deliverance from God; and this was in
order to keep them from deserting, and that they might
be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes. Now a
man that is in adversity does easily comply with such
promises; for when such a seducer makes him believe
that he shall be delivered from those miseries which
oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of
hopes of such his deliverance.

3. Thus were the miserable people persuaded by
these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while
they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that
were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their
future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without
either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not
regard the denunciations that God made to them. Thus
there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over
the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year.
Thus also before the Jews' rebellion, and before those
commotions which preceded the war, when the people
were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened
bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus,
[Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great
a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that
it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for
half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to
the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred
scribes, as to portend those events that followed
immediately upon it. At the same festival also, a
heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be
sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the
temple. Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner [court
of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy,
and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and
rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts
fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was
there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened
of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night.
Now those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon
running to the captain of the temple, and told him of
it; who then came up thither, and not without great
difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also
appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as
if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness.
But the men of learning understood it, that the
security of their holy house was dissolved of its own
accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage
of their enemies. So these publicly declared that the
signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon
them. Besides these, a few days after that feast, on
the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,]
a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon
appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be
a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and
were not the events that followed it of so
considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for,
before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in
their armor were seen running about among the clouds,
and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast
which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by
night into the inner [court of the temple,] as their
custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations,
they said that, in the first place, they felt a
quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they
heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, "Let us
remove hence." But, what is still more terrible, there
was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a
husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and
at a time when the city was in very great peace and
prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our
custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the
temple, began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A voice from
the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four
winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a
voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a
voice against this whole people!" This was his cry, as
he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of
the city. However, certain of the most eminent among
the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of
his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number
of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing
for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that
chastised him, but still went on with the same words
which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing,
as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of
divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman
procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were
laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for
himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to
the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of
the whip his answer was, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" And
when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked
him, Who he was? and whence he came? and why he
uttered such words? he made no manner of reply to what
he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy
ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and
dismissed him. Now, during all the time that passed
before the war began, this man did not go near any of
the citizens, nor was seen by them while he said so;
but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if
it were his premeditated vow, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!"
Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat
him every day, nor good words to those that gave him
food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no
other than a melancholy presage of what was to come.
This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and
he continued this ditty for seven years and five
months, without growing hoarse, or being tired
therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage
in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for
as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with
his utmost force, "Woe, woe to the city again, and to
the people, and to the holy house!" And just as he
added at the last, "Woe, woe to myself also!" there
came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him,
and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the
very same presages he gave up the ghost.

4. Now if any one consider these things, he will
find that God takes care of mankind, and by all ways
possible foreshows to our race what is for their
preservation; but that men perish by those miseries
which they madly and voluntarily bring upon
themselves; for the Jews, by demolishing the tower of
Antonia, had made their temple four-square, while at
the same time they had it written in their sacred
oracles, "That then should their city be taken, as
well as their holy house, when once their temple
should become four-square." But now, what did the most
elevate them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous
oracle that was also found in their sacred writings,
how," about that time, one from their country should
become governor of the habitable earth." The Jews took
this prediction to belong to themselves in particular,
and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in
their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted
the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor
in Judea. However, it is not possible for men to avoid
fate, although they see it beforehand. But these men
interpreted some of these signals according to their
own pleasure, and some of them they utterly despised,
until their madness was demonstrated, both by the
taking of their city and their own destruction.